SAG Awards Beauty: Lupita Nyong’o Colorful Eye Makeup

The star’s makeup artist gives us a lesson in how to rock a mix of shades.

Makeup artist Nick Barose takes the challenge of creating fresh looks for client Lupita Nyong’o at each award show seem simple. For Saturday’s SAG awards, Barose demonstrated the payoff of coloring outside the proverbial beauty lines with a look for Nyong’o that proved that beauty rules are meant to be broken.

His first rule-breaker come in the form of putting the unexpected combination of blue, purple and yellow on the eyes, in this case with the blue shade from Chanel’s Quadra Eye Shadow in Fascination, Chanel Ombre Essentielle Soft Touch Eyeshadow in Amethyst and the shimmering yellow Chanel Limited Edition Le Crayon Khol Intense Eye Pencil in Peche Cuivre.

“I got the idea of making the eyes look like butterfly wings inspired by the flowers from her Gucci dress,” Barose tells Pret-a-Porter. He adds that he didn’t want to go too matchy-matchy with the green in her gown. “By blending the three colors together, it makes the look more fun and quirky.”

Barose says the key to pulling off multiple colors is to keep the application simple: “I dabbed the blue on the inner corners, the yellow on the brow bones and purple to the outer corners and lower lash lines with just a smudge of black liner along the upper lash lines.” Another tip he offers is to go bright with one color–in this case the blue–and keep the other shades more muted.

Speaking of muted: Wouldn’t a neutral lip be the appropriate match for colorful eye makeup? “Yes, the beauty rule would call for a subdued mouth with eyes like this,” says Barose, who considered doing that look. “But I know Lupita can carry color and I wanted to stick with the flowers and butterfly theme so I opted for a soft pink peony pout that’s sheer so the color doesn’t compete with the eyes.” (He used Chanel Le Crayon Levres Precision Lip Definer in Framboise to line and fill in lips, and topped that with Chanel Rouge Allure Luminous Intense Lip Colour in Passion.) “We broke all the rules with this look.”